


You Can Be the Boss

by autoeuphoric (FreezingRayne)



Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bikers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Light Dom/sub, M/M, gangleader!mink, punkass!aoba
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-02 16:22:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2818562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingRayne/pseuds/autoeuphoric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mink wants revenge for the deaths of his family, Aoba is looking for the brother he’s never met but knows is out there. They may as well use each other to get what they want. </p><p>A modern biker AU wherein Mink (sort of) kidnaps Aoba. Shit-talking and sexual tension ensues. They take on Toue or something. </p><p>For agonicarts, who wanted Aoba in a leather jacket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Be the Boss

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Agony who, in addition to being a wonderful badass, shares my love for a certain cinnamon-flavored bara. Merry Christmas! 
> 
> I'm not even really sure how to warn for this fic--it isn't non-con, because the bar for minao is set pretty high with that. It will, however, contain rape fantasy and ideation. I can't explain it without giving away a lot of the plot. It's pretty light in this chapter, though. 
> 
> POV is teeange Aoba (or Sly Blue, I guess).

Virus’s zippo is matte black, decorated with a white and pink decal of a heart. “Light?” He always smiles just like this—bland and creepy, like he learned how to do it from a youtube video.

I suck hard on the cigarette as the tip flares hazard-cone orange. “Thanks,” I say around the smoke, and I actually don’t choke this time.

“I didn’t know Aoba smoked,” says Trip.

I’m not sure if Trip is Virus’ brother, boyfriend, or bodyguard, but I’ve never seen them apart. They are weirdly symbiotic, like they’re separate limbs of the same creature.

            “Clearly, he does smoke,” Virus says patiently. 

            “Well yeah, _clearly._ Now I know.”

            I knock ash off the end of the cigarette and watch it drift to the cracked asphalt. This is actually only the third one I’ve ever had. The first I had not been able to finish, and the second had made me throw up. I’d told Grams it was because of my migraines, but I’m pretty sure she smelled the smoke on my clothes. Ren definitely had. He’d given me that _you should know better_ look all night.

            I stare out across the lot, jittery even with the kick of nicotine. A couple people have left their bikes on, headlights competing with the hazy glow of the bonfire. It’s barely nine and everyone’s already drunk.

            I’m barely listening the first time they say it. Virus and Trip are always talking about weird shit; I tend to tune them out.

            “Wait.” I spin back around, choking on the drag I’ve just taken. Virus continues to smile, waiting while I double over and hack my lungs out. I drop the cigarette into a muddy puddle. “What did you say?”

            “I said, we found your brother.”

            “You mean—.”

            “Yes, your twin brother. Your real brother.”

            That pisses me off, because Ren _is_ my real brother—the whole blood is thicker than water thing is bullshit—but I’ve been looking for Sei for years. Ever since Grams got that random call from the adoption agency telling us he exists.

            Virus’ face constructs another plastic look of concern. “How? Well, you must have mentioned it to us.”

            “Right,” Trip says. “How else would we know?”

            “Where is he?”

            “With your father.”

            Thatalmost throws me down into the puddle with the cigarette. “I don’t have a father.”

            “Everyone has a father,” Virus says.

            “At least everyone human,” Tripp adds.

            “How…” I push my hair back out of my eyes, forcing the conversation to slow down. “How did you find this out?”

            Virus adjusts his shirt collar. Everyone else out here is dressed like mall punks, and here he is with his plaid fucking tie. “We asked the boss.”

            This is an obnoxious answer, because I’ve been running around with Morphine for a year now, and I’m positive there is no boss. He’s just a mouthpiece for Virus, since nobody wants to take orders from a guy with that much gel in his hair, who’s barely older than they are.

            “Fine,” I say. “I believe you. Where is he?”

            Virus grimaces. “We can’t tell you that, unfortunately.”

            “Huh?”

            “You have to do something first,” Trip says.

            I shove my hands into my jacket pockets. Trip and Virus have never asked me for anything before. I’m not even officially a member of Morphine, because joining a street gang in a bumlebfuck town like this would be unbelievably lame.

            “I don’t have to do shit for you,” I say.

            “You misunderstand me, Aoba. If it was up to us, we’d just give you the information. We’d give you anything you asked for.”

            I hope that isn’t meant to be reassuring, because it’s not.

            “It’s just—the boss.” Virus smiles again, like he knows I know he’s bullshitting me. But he’d never crack. Once, when I’d been a little high (okay, really high) I’d sucked him off just to see if I could force an expression beyond mild interest. His breathing got ragged, but apart from that, nothing. He dug his fingers in my hair and came down my throat, and then thanked me like I’d just held a door open for him.

            “Fine,” I snap. “Whatever. What does the boss want me to do?”

            Virus pulls a sealed envelope out of his breast pocket. It’s pale pink, like a birthday card. “Have you ever heard of a bar called Jailbreak?”

 

            Jailbreak is way out of town, and I actually pass it once. The parking lot is around the back, and the only indication that it’s not an abandoned building is a blinking COLD BEER sign in the window. The lot is full of bikes, all of them bigger, and flashier than mine.  Couple of burly guys are standing outside the door, drinking PBR and watching me pull up.

            “You lost, kid?” one guy asks. He’s got a bristly moustache and a huge forehead.

            “Is this Jailbreak?”

            He jerks his head at the sign of over the door.

            I rock casually back on my heels. “Then I’m not lost.”

            The guy all in black’s got to be the bouncer, because he steps in front of the door as I walk up. “You got I.D.?”

            I pull out my wallet, smirking. “Sure,”

            My fake I.D. declares me a twenty-one year old Asian male. I look about fifteen in the picture. The bouncer arches an eyebrow. “Jonathon Blue?”

            I point to my hair. “I think it suits me.”

            He snorts, but gives me the card back and gets out of my way.

            Inside is warm and crowded, and actually a lot less nasty than I’m expecting. It smells like damp cedar and fried food, and very slightly of weed. A jukebox with an out-of-order sign stands in one corner, but there’s still music coming from somewhere.

            I get a couple doubletakes when I walk in, but with the blue hair I’m pretty used to that. I stand at the bar between a chick with cornrows and an old dude who looks like he might be touching himself under the table.

            There’s two bartenders, and the closest one leans in toward me. “I want to see the boss,” I say.

            He laughs at me. “And I want my dick to grow two inches. Don’t mean it’s going to happen.”

            I let the expression die out of my face to show him just how not fucking around I am. “I’m here from Morphine.”

            That makes him laugh harder, but he walks down the bar and says something to the other bartender, who briefly cocks her head, then nods. She pours a line of shots out before snapping her rag over her shoulder and walking down to me.

            “Shouldn’t you be in bed, kid?”

            Her voice is calm and surprisingly deep for a girl her size. She has skinny shoulders and a pointed nose, and her beaded bracelets jingle as she crosses her arms. With her bright pink fauxhawk and feathered earrings, she definitely stands out, but she’s not who I’m looking for.

            “You’re not the boss,” I say.

            “You’re right. I’m not.” She checks me out. “You don’t look like a gangbanger. What are you doing in a place like this?”

            I want to ask _her_ the same thing, but she has these really sharp black eyes, and for some reason I find myself telling her the truth. “I’m doing a favor in exchange for information. I need to deliver something to Scratch’s boss.”

            She extends a hand. “I’ll take it for you.”

            I shake my head. “I can only give it to the boss.” Virus had been weirdly insistent about that.

            She stares at me for a few more seconds, before pointing at an Employee’s Only door at the far end of the bar.  “Anyone gives you trouble, tell them Bird let you in.”

 

Beyond the door is a bare hallway, and then another door with another couple guys outside it. They're even bigger and uglier than the guys at the entrance, but they let me in. I get a quick look of a mostly empty room with a colorful floor, before I’m shoved hard on the ass and the small of my back. I’m totally unprepared for it, and I end up on all fours. The door slams shut behind me. The noise of the bar is cut down and I hear a slow exhale.

            I flip my hair out of my eyes. I’m sitting between a pair of legs. The legs are attached to a guy, and yeah, I definitely would have noticed him right away if he’d been out at the bar, even without Virus’ description.

            I’d been planning on keeping my mouth shut for once and just doing the job, but that was before I had been tossed out the door like a bag of garbage and banged my elbow on the floor.

            “Son of a bitch motherfucker!” I spit over my shoulder, even though there’s no way they can hear me through the door.

            A big hand comes down and grabs the front of my jacket, and I get up close and personal with a pair of high-laced leather boots.

            “Fucker,” I grit out, grabbing at his fingers. “Let go of me.”

            “You looking for someone?” he asks. His voice has a deep, resonant purr to it, like a bike running just right. It gives me shivers in the pit of my stomach, but I’m still pissed.

            “Let go of me and then maybe—.”

            “Shut up.” He shakes me hard, once. If this is how Scratch treats their guests, no wonder Bird let me in so easy.

            The guy—Mink, Virus had called him—has thick dreadlocks and a chain around his neck that looks less like an accessory and more for keeping him locked up at night. His features are broad, cheekbones sculpted, eyes cool and black.

            “I’m here to see Mink,” I say, and even though I know the answer I add, “That you?”

            I reach into my back pocket and pull out Virus’ card. Mink still isn’t talking, but he takes the card and loosens his grip on me. It’s not enough to get away, and it grates on me that I have to stay kneeling at his feet while he reads. Does he make everyone who comes to see him stay face-planted in his crotch, or am I special?

            His gaze flickers slowly across the paper.

            “Yo, unless you want me to suck your dick while I’m down here—.” My pulse skips hard in my throat and the room gets hotter. “Could you let me up?” He raises an eyebrow, and my stomach starts doing back flips. _Oh god, he’s going to tell me to do it._

            Would I? Would I reach up and unbutton his ragged grey jeans and pull his cock out? I might not have a choice. All he’d have to do is put one hand on the back of my head, push me down, make me swallow until I choke—

            Mink lets me go and I fall back hard. I scramble up and pull my jacket down, and fuck, are my legs actually shaking?

            Mink stands up, and I barely stop myself from backing away.

            I know how most guys act when they’re trying to prove they’re hardcore. They cuss, spit on the ground, wave weapons around, start shit over nothing. Mink doesn’t have to do any of these things to look dangerous. It’s clear from every movement, every inch of his body. Anything he wanted me to do I’d do it. And he wouldn’t even need a gun to make me.

            These kind of thoughts are not helping me calm down any. I wish Mink would turn around to give my a second to adjust myself; my hard-on is annoyingly obvious in these pants.

            Mink takes a step closer, and I catch a whiff of something. Nutmeg? Cinnamon? Has he been doing a lot of baking back here? Maybe he just likes scented candles.

            He crumples up the envelope in one hand. Whatever it had said, looks like he hadn’t liked it.

            “Hey, man. I’m just the messenger. Virus said—.”

            I break off and Mink freezes, because the one thing you never want to hear at a gang hangout comes bellowing through the door.

            “POLICE! EVERYBODY GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS IN THE AIR!”

           

            The bar is chaos—patrons shouting, Scratch members pulling weapons, while a group of kids who are obviously underage hunker down in their booth, like they think policemen are like dinosaurs and won’t see them if they stay very, very still. Cops swarm in through the front door, and some even have shields and helmets, like they’re expecting a riot. One guy with really crazy hair is shouting orders into a megaphone, which seems excessive. This isn’t a very big place.

            Bird is staring at us from across the room, or more specifically, staring at Mink. He nods, one sharp jerk of his chin, and a sharp smile shatters through her nonchalance. She yanks something out from beneath the bar and tosses it hard toward the center of the room. I’m looking at it and so is everyone else, before a big hand slaps across my face and covers my eyes.

            “Hey, what the fu—.” Another hand covers my mouth. I smell cinnamon. I see the flash through the cracks in Mink’s fingers, and then the bar erupts into screams. The one guy is cursing through his megaphone. Mink lets me go and I stumble away from him. Almost everyone else is on the floor, cops and gang members and patrons. Bird is nowhere to be seen, and neither are the guys from the front door.

            “Shit, what the fuck is going on?” The one night I come to this goddamn place there has to be a raid.

            A cop lies stretched out a few feet away from us, facedown, but I see his hands start moving, working underneath himself on the ground. Either he’s going to unbutton his pants, or—

            Mink’s looking out across the sea of overturned chairs and spilled beer, so he doesn’t see the cop start to crawl towards him, but I do. At first I think he’s pulled a gun, but then I see the spark. He lunges at Mink, taser aimed at the center of his belly, right where it will do the most damage.

            “Watch out!” I react on reflex, pushing on Mink’s chest and kicking the cop hard in the face. He chokes and drops the taser. Mink looks at me, then he looks across the room.

            Megaphone guy is watching us, watching _me_. He saw me kick his buddy in the face. I am so boned.

            “Fuck, did you—.”

            I turn to find Mink heading into the back hallway. He looks over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”

            I curse and hustle my ass after him.

            I have no idea what he’s thinking—we’re rats in a trap back here—but then I see the back door, dusty and half-rusted, down a short flight of steps. I hadn’t noticed it with Mink’s crotch in the way.

            He pulls the door open with a squealing jerk, grabbing a brown leather jacket from the back of the couch. 

            I hang back at the top of the steps. “My bike is out front.”

            Mink shrugs the jacket on. It’s too short for him in the arms. “Go out and get it, then.”

            I bare my teeth and follow him out into the back lot. “Mother _fucker_.”

            It’s started to rain, a slimy mist settling on my hands and hot cheeks. I’d gone from turned-on to freaked out to pissed off, all within the last five minutes, and I’m a little dizzy as I trip down the rusting steps into the bar’s back lot. It smells like trash and the sharp metal stink of the heater. I immediately inhale a raindrop and sneeze.

            There are a bunch of bikes parked out here, and Mink chooses one at what looks like random, but as soon as he’s kicked the ignition it’s obvious its his—he knows it like he knows his own body. Possibly better. I don’t know how well he knows his body.

            He slings a leg over the bike, powerful thighs clenching tight. The mist settles in his hair and on his cheeks, making them gleam in the yellow security lights. “Get on.”

            I hate riding double, but it definitely beats riding in the back of a police car with Megaphone Man. I climb on behind Mink. He mumbles something that drowns in the rumble of the heating unit.

            “What?”

            “I said, don’t fall off.”

            He revs the engine and next second I’ve got both arms wrapped around his middle, the acceleration doing its very best to rip me off the bike.

            “They’re gonna catch us out here, we’ve got nowhere to go!” All the way back into town it’s a one-lane highway.

            “I don’t think they will.”

 

            Mink’s bike? It goes fast.

 

            He’s warm, which is good, since it’s freezing out here and all I have is a beat-up leather jacket with most of the lining gone. Mink’s abs tighten under my fingers every time he leans into a turn. His dreads scratch my cheeks and now I’m sure the cinnamon smell is coming from him. I breathe deeper, trying to figure to decide whether it’s cologne

            “What are you doing?” Mink’s back rumbles against my chest.

            “Nothing.”

            _Definitely not getting turned on because you smell like pumpkin pie and your bike is vibrating against my balls._

            “Where are we going?” I ask eventually, because we’d passed my town about ten minutes ago, hitting the freeway and delving deeper into the windy night.

            “The city,” Mink says, and that’s all I get out of him for hours, literally. I don’t ask him to pull over and let me off, because I get the feeling he’ll do it. Just leave me by the side of the road in the middle of assfuck nowhere. I barely have twenty bucks on me, and my phone charge won’t hold out much longer.

            After awhile it gets hard to stay awake, but if I sleep, I’ll fall off. At this speed, even if I had a helmet on, I would be roadkill. Still, I must sort of doze off or space out, because the next time I notice we are decelerating, the highway is gone and we’re pulling into a mostly empty parking lot. A neon motel sign hovers a couple yards away, half the letters burned out. The motel itself is even more depressing than Jailbreak. 

            Mink turns off the bike. After the steady roar of the engine, the deep night silence is eerie. He taps my fingers, and I realize that I still have my arms wrapped around him. I scramble away so fast I almost trip getting off the bike. Without his body heat, I’m freezing.

            “Don’t go anywhere,” Mink says, and he puts the keys in his back pocket.

            “Are you kidnapping me?” I ask as he strides off.

            He pauses and glances across the parking lot. On one side is weed-choked industrial field, and on the other an ancient, abandoned gas station. The motel that time fucking forgot.  “You’re welcome to leave. It’s only about two hundred miles back to your town.”

            _Two hundred miles._ I must have been zoned out for longer than I thought. I wrap my arms around myself and watch him walk off to the motel office, which is the only room in the building with a light on.

            I wait until the door slams shut behind him before pulling out my phone. I have five missed calls, four from Grams and one from Ren. I hit his name, and Ren picks up after the first ring.

            “Aoba.”

            Even hundreds of miles away from home, across a scratchy connection, Ren’s deep, ponderous voice calms me down. “Hey, yeah. It’s me.”

            “Where are you? Grams is having a heart attack.”

            “Has she started throwing things yet?”

            I hear the laugh in his voice. “Not yet. But she will probably throw them at you when you get back.”

`            Ren has an even, precise way of talking—he always pronounces all the parts of the words. Other kids at the foster home used to make fun of him for it. We had a routine—Ren would speak, kids would laugh, and I would rearrange their faces. Ren would stop me before I went too far. When mom and dad wanted to adopt me, I refused to go unless they adopted Ren too.

            Of course, a couple years in they got bored of having kids, and dumped me with mom’s mother Tae. I don’t care, though. Grams and Ren are enough family for me.

            “I told Grams you’re out with Virus and Trip.”

            “Great. Thanks.” She hates me hanging out with the tacky blond thug twins (her words, not mine) but at least it’s normal. Well, more normal than ending up hundreds of miles from home with a dreadlocked giant.

            “I got a call from Virus,” Ren says.

            “From Virus? Why? How did he even get your number?” That’s a stupid question. I’m sure Virus has our social security numbers, email passwords, and dick size. Well, he definitely has that last one for me.

            “He told me he had a message for you.”

            “A message? Why didn’t he just call me?”

            “I don’t know.” Ren’s being patient with my dumb questions.

            “Sorry, Ren. You shouldn’t have to deal with those guys. What was the message?”

            “ _His last name is Toue._ ”

            “What? Who’s last name is what?”

            “Toue. T-O-U-E. I looked it up. It’s Japanese.”

            I frown. _I’m_ Japanese. At least, grams is pretty sure I am. And that means—

“Wait, Ren, did Virus say anything else? Did he say who ‘he’ is?”

            “No. He said you would understand.”

            I lean back against Mink’s bike, feeling the worn leather seat creak underneath me. Ren keeps talking.

            “It’s not a common surname. The only Toue of much significance is a businessman. CEO of Toue Inc. He’s really rich. Apparently he owns an island off the coast of Japan.”

            “So, wait.” The slowly expanding bubble of excitement threatens to burst. “Toue is in Japan?”

            Ren coughs. “No. The main Toue offices are there, but the man lives New York City with his son.”

            _With his son._ The words reverberate through me.

            “Does any of this mean anything to you?” Ren asks. He’s noticing my silences.

            “Yeah, yeah, it might. Thanks for your help.”

            “Anytime.”

            We disconnect, and I look up just in time to see Mink striding back across the lot. He frowns when he catches me leaning on his bike.

            “What city are we going to?” I ask.

            He looks at me for a couple of seconds, as if trying to decide how much trouble I could cause him with that information. “We are about forty miles outside of Manhattan. New York,” he adds.

            “I know what Manhattan is,” I snap.

            I barely take anything in as I follow Mink across the cracked parking lot to one of the dark motel rooms. It smells like Chlorox and feet. Mink doesn’t even take his jacket off before he ignores the No Smoking sign on the door and starts packing a bowl of something. The pipe he uses isn’t like any kind I’ve ever seen; it’s slender and made of dark wood. It looks old. And whatever he’s smoking out of it doesn’t smell like weed or tobacco.

            I turn my phone off to reserve the charge, and after that I have nothing to do but sit here and watch Mink ignore me. At least he’s okay to look at. He sits back in the room’s only chair and blows out a long stream of white smoke, profile highlighted by bars of light and shadow through the crooked blinds. He has really nice skin—smooth and brown. His dreads are nice, too, like he really knows how to take care of them. His nose is thin and slightly pointed, which is startling against his otherwise broad, heavy features.

            I realize something I hadn’t at first and bounce awkwardly on the lumpy mattress. “There’s only one bed.”

            Mink taps his pipe on the edge of a styrofoam cup. “And?”

            “Are we going to share it?”

            He stands up. Apparently smoking time is over. “You’re welcome to sleep on the floor, or pay for your own room.” His lips quirk a little. “Afraid I won’t keep my hands to myself?”

            My skin ripples and I jerk my eyes away. They’d fallen to said hands, which are huge and could pin me down against the mattress with no trouble at all. With the size difference, he and I are a porno waiting to happen. “More like I’m afraid you’ll roll on top of me in your sleep. You’re fucking huge.”

            I retreat into the bathroom before I can say anything else stupid.

 

            Mink does keep his hands to himself and he does not roll on top of me. In fact, he stays so I wonder if he’s even sleeping at all. Maybe he’s just gone into power-saving mode. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a robot.

            I don’t sleep much either. My body is exhausted and achy from the ride, but my brain has never gone so fast.

            _His name is Toue._

            It has to be Sei. There isn’t anyone else Virus could have meant, right? There’s no other _he_ that I’m looking for, who’s last name I don’t know. But if Virus knew that the whole time, why did he make me go all the way out to Jailbreak? He could have gotten anyone to deliver that scrap of paper. He could have held the information about my brother over my head, gotten me to do something much more useful than run an errand.

            And now look what’s happened. I can’t even report back.

            _Unless…_

            Unless this had been Virus’ plan the whole time. Could he have known that whatever was on that card would light such a fire under Mink’s ass that he would immediately take off for NYC? But then how had they known he would take me with him?

            Fuck, had he arranged the raid too?

            _You’re being paranoid,_ I tell myself. No way Virus and Trip have that much pull with the police. Morphine is just small time.

            _Coincidence,_ I tell myself. But I don’t really believe it.

 

           

            The New York skyline comes creeping up, and at a distance the buildings look artificial. A temporary sandcastle city. I want to watch it come closer, but a migraine is pulsing behind my right eye. I’d popped a couple of my pills back before we left the motel, but it takes them awhile to kick in. I rest my forehead against Mink’s back and let the motion of the bike roll over me, focusing on not throwing up. I don’t know if Mink would push me off the bike if I puked on his jacket, but I’m not going to risk it.

            When I finally do start to feel good enough to raise my head, we are inside the sand castle city, except up close everything is glass and garbage and smog. I know, I know, small town boy, but it’s a little overwhelming. Traffic is so loud that I still have to shout to be overheard, even stopped at an intersection.

            “Will you please tell me what we’re doing here? Or what _you’re_ doing here?” Because I know what I’m doing. Ditching this guy as soon as possible and finding my brother. After that…well, I haven’t really thought any further than that.

            Mink says nothing for a minute or so, then—. “There’s someone I need to see.”

            “Who?”

            The light turns green and we drift out into the never-ending ant trail of traffic. I’m sure Mink had heard me, but his answer, if he has one, is stolen away by the city.

 

            I lean on Mink’s bike, one foot on the curb, arms crossed against the early-morning cold. The sky is a perfect slab of marble, grey threaded through with veins of wispy clouds.

            I scowl down the sidewalk to where Mink is having a conference with a couple of kids on the corner. One of them has a yoyo that he continues to throw at the ground while Mink talks to him, which is pretty ballsy. The other kid is frowning at the ground, but he perks up considerably when Mink hands him a packet of something that looks a little too dark to be cocaine.

            _It’s probably cinnamon. He’s probably a cinnamon dealer. He gets it wholesale._

            Mink shakes hands with both kids before striding back up to me. “Off,” he says.

            “Making friends with baby thugs?”

            A brief grin flickers over his face. “I’ve already got one of those.”

            I scowl. “Hey, they’re like, fifteen!”

            “And you are…sixteen?”

            “I’m _eighteen._ ” I cross my arms. “How old are you, fifty?”

            “I’m forty-seven.”

            “What?!” I hop up onto the curb. “For real?” I had just been being an asshole—he can’t be any older than thirty-five. Forty at the most.

            He swings a leg over onto the bike. “Does it matter?”

            I shrug. “No.” Not like I had been wondering how creepy the age difference would be. “Where are we going now?”            

            “I’m going uptown.” He starts up the bike. “You are staying here.”

            “What? Why?”

            “I don’t need you right now.”

            I snort. “So what, you expect me to just sit on the curb and wait for you like a dog?”

            Mink gestures behind me at the café. “Or you could wait inside. Like a human.”

            He leaves me behind to breathe in his exhaust. I almost want to stay outside just to spite him, but blasts of cold air are coming down the road between the buildings, and I’m not feeling spiteful enough to freeze my balls off. So I go up the crumbling steps into the Jellyfish Café.

            Inside smells like bread and warm sugar, and best of all they’ve got the heat on full-blast. It’s crowded and I slip to a table near the back, trying to remain as unobtrusive as I can with a full head of blue hair. The tables are kind of low, and I bang my knee on the bottom as I sit down. They all have these bright, chintzy lampshades, hung with beaded fronds. Jellyfish, I guess.

            I empty my pockets out onto the table. I have eighteen bucks in singles, three more in coins, along with a mostly full pack of cigarettes and a couple condoms.

            I should save the little money I have, but the smell of coffee is way too much to endure. Fuck it. It’s not like twenty-one bucks is enough for a bus ticket. And I can steal if I really have to. I’m not a bad pickpocket.

            On either end of the cafe counter are thin, bell-shaped glass jars, each containing a jellyfish suspended in clear liquid. I’m pretty sure they’re real. It’s a surprisingly creepy touch—all the other decoration is so fucking cute you could die.

            I get to the front of the line and the guy behind the counter says, “They glow in the dark!”

            “Huh?”

            “The jellyfish!”

            “Oh.” I put my coins on the counter, quarters fanning out in an island chain against the dark wood. “Are they…dead?”

            The guy smiles brightly. “Yeah! They died of natural causes.”

            “That’s…good, I guess.” How do they know? Did they ask it?

            The boy sighs. “They’re gorgeous, aren’t they?”

            “What? Oh, yeah…I guess they’re kind of pretty?” Freaky, more like—colorful, gluey lumps with a mass of tentacles. 

            The barista is dressed all in black, a yellow scarf looped several times around his neck and knotted up high to keep it out of the way. He has soft, pretty eyes and two small brown moles on his chin. He is way more interesting to look at than the dead jellyfish, in my opinion. I order a cup of coffee and watch him make it. He doesn’t just pour it out of a machine like we do at home—he scoops grinds out into a filter suspended over a ceramic cup, then pours boiling water over them from out of a thin-spouted pot, holding it up high like he’s a butler in some old movie. Seems like a little much for just a damn cup of coffee.

            Admittedly, it is pretty good.

            I sit in the back and wait for Mink. The rush clears out after an hour or so, and I can see to the front of the shop to where one of the boys from the corner is hanging out, drinking Coke from a glass bottle. He’s trying to watch me and pretend he’s not, and doing a really terrible job. I’m willing to bet that if I tried to leave, Mink would hear about it in five seconds flat. Maybe I really have been kidnapped.

            I give the kid a lazy wave and he scowls.

            Bored, I glance over to the table next to me. The guy at it probably couldn’t give a shit about the window—he wants the outlet that’s under it. He’s got like five different devices set up—laptop, tablet, two cell phones and what looks like a secondary screen. He’s been typing furiously, ignoring the cooling cup of coffee that the jellyfish boy had brought him when he’d come in. He’s got a bunch of piercings and they flash in the late morning sunlight.

            He looks up and catches me watching him. He raises his eyebrows, and goes back to typing.

            It’s almost stupid—him with a million ways to get online and me with a dying cell phone with a cracked screen. I want to look up where the Toue Inc. building is, because that’s a good a place to start as any, but I’ll probably have to go to a library to do that. Are there even libraries in NYC? In movies there only ever seems to be museums, night clubs, and back alleys full of hookers.

 

            Two hours later and Mink is still not back. Is this some sort of psychological torture, where I’m forced into a place that smells like blueberry muffins I can’t afford, and have to sit here for hours listening to a bubbly barista go on about his fucking jellyfish lamps? I wouldn’t put it past Mink to do this just to mess with me.

            I’m momentarily distracted by a guy with stylishly choppy hair and a scar across the bridge of his nose. He comes in and orders a cappuccino, calling the barista by name—Claire? Clear?—and heads to the back to annoy the kid with all the tech.

            “Should’ve known the Meme Lord would be here, using up all the wifi.”

            “That isn’t how wifi works,” the kid says, not bothering to look up.

            “Are you at least paying for the coffee you’re drinking?”

            Piercings taps something into his iPad. “I didn’t order it. Clear just keeps bringing it to me.”

            Shaggy Hair sighs. “Mizuki is going to expect _someone_ to pay for it.”

            “Thanks for offering.”

            “I’m not your dad, you know.”

            “Nope, just a dirty old man.” Piercings finally looks up. He grabs Shaggy Hair by the collar of his shirt and kisses him, mouth opened wide enough for me to a see the flash of a tongue piercing.

            “That’s what you were waiting for, right?” He goes back to his computers while Shaggy Hair stutters and flushes, wobbling over to the counter for his coffee.

            Great. And now I can add _obnoxiously turned-on_ to my list of ailments. I don’t care what a big bad son of a bitch he is; I’m seriously going to punch Mink’s shit.

 

            I wake up to the sound of Mink’s voice. It’s velvety and resonate, even in the noise of the café. He’s standing at the counter, holding a twenty dollar bill between his fingers. What, is he doing some deal in the middle of the day?

            He gets coffee and change in exchange for the twenty and I remember, oh yeah, in addition to being a gang leader and an asshole, he’s also a person, and people need coffee. 

            He hangs back a couple seconds at the counter, talking to the barista. Jellyfish Boy has been replaced by a guy with a teardrop tattoo under one eye. Classic, in kind of a lame way.

            Mink adds milk to his coffee—which gives me a little flush of satisfaction. I drink _my_ coffee black. He hasn’t looked at me once since I’ve been awake, but he heads straight back and takes the seat across from me. He has to angle his legs out because they won’t fit under the table.

            “No cinnamon?” I ask as he sips his coffee.

            “What?”

            “Half-asleep. Never mind.” A glance at the door tells me the boys are gone. Mission accomplished. I’m still here.

            “What now?” I ask, almost disinterested. It’s not like he’s going to actually tell me. “You ever going to explain why you kidnapped me?”

            “Now we wait until the clubs open.”

            I stare at him. “We’re going clubbing?”

            Mink drinks more coffee. He holds the cup delicately with two fingers. He could probably crush it if he wanted to. “A specific club.”

            “And we’re going there because…”

            “I need to meet with someone.”            

            I drum my fingers on the table, annoyed. “Who?”

            Mink’s brows arch. “Will knowing who help you in any way? Do you know many people in New York City?”

            _Just one._

            I cross my arms and stick out my lip. Not that I think pouting is going to get my anywhere with Mink. If I’d thought I could charm him, I would have pulled out the big guns last night at the motel.

 

 

            I expect the staff to get pissed at us for staying parked in the back of the café for so long, but Mink buys me food and himself more coffee, and I guess they don’t care as long as we’re spending money.

            It’s about 4 p.m. and I’m in the bathroom, washing my hands after a several-cups-of-coffee induced piss. The door opens and Shaggy Hair appears in the mirror. Damn. He’s even hotter up close.

            “Hey,” he says, a  awkwardly. “This is…well, I was watching you out there…”

            I smirk at him in the mirror. “Oh yeah?” _This_ is a situation I actually know how to handle. I turn around. “You like what you see?”

            “Huh?” The guy is Mink’s physical opposite, slender and elegant, with a long neck and an intricate tattoo that licks his collarbone and vanishes into his clothes. “Okay, wow, that’s not—not what I was getting at.” He flushes.

I cross my arms. “What then?”

            “I wanted to ask if you’re…well, if you’re alright. “Do you need help?”

            “Huh?” A suspicion grabs me. “Did Virus send you?”

            “Who?” He looks genuinely confused. “No, I don’t know anybody named Virus. Just, Noiz—the kid out there with the computers—he overheard you talking about kidnapping and…”

            _Oh. Right._ The kid had had headphones on, but that didn’t mean he’d had to be listening to music.

            “I know that’s rude of him, but he texted me, so I thought I would come ask if you need me to call the cops.”

            And here’s my out, if I want it.

            I most definitely do not want this guy to call the cops, but he, Noiz, the barista with the tear tattoo, and I could probably take Mink all together. He’s big but he’s not, like, the Hulk.

            Probably best to get away from Mink while I can—it’ll be a lot easier to look for Sei when I’m not on a leash.

            But instead I find myself laughing. “What? Oh, shit. No. I don’t know what kind of drugs your friend is on—.”

            “I don’t either,” mutters Shaggy Hair.

            “—but he’s my boyfriend, not my kidnapper.”

            The guy’s eyes narrow. “Are you sure? Has he threatened you?”

            I laugh again, high and manic. What the fuck am I doing?

            “No, nothing like that. Sometimes we just like to roleplay, okay.”

            “ _Roleplay?”_

            “Yeah. What, are you judging my lifestyle now? Fuck you, man.”

            I stumble out of the bathroom, ears burning, heart beating so hard I taste it in the back of my throat.

            I knock into the corner of the table, sloshing Mink’s coffee over. “What—.”

            I put my hand on his thigh and he is shocked into silence. I lean down to whisper in his ear, familiar and intimate. At least on the outside.

            “Just play along for a second.” He still smells like cinnamon, but now there’s coffee and sweat and leather mixed in, and my voice quavers a little.

            Mink makes a questioning noise, but he doesn’t shove me away or shoot me or anything, and I count that as cooperation. His cheek is rough with stubble, and I get momentarily derailed by the warm architecture of his jaw, before I lean in and peck him on the lips. He doesn’t kiss me back, but he allows it. The romantic (i.e. horny) parts of me had been hoping he’d take the opportunity to grab me by the hair and stick his tongue down my throat, but whatever. You can’t have everything.            

            “Come on, baby,” I croon. “Let’s get out of here.”

            I’m really hamming it up, but when I glance back over my shoulder, I know I got the point across. Shaggy Hair doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t follow us as we leave.

            After the sugary warmth of the café, the wind hits me like a bitch-slap. I keep my arm around Mink to maintain the pretense, but as we turn the corner at the end of the block he shakes me off.

            “Why did you do that?” His dreads are too heavy for the wind to play with and they hang still beside his head, like he’s creating his own personal vacuum.

            “The dude with the—.” I draw a swoopy scar across my nose. “His boyfriend with the cell phones heard us talking. He wanted to call the police.

            “You didn’t let them.”

            I scrape the heel of my shoe against the concrete. “No.”

            For a millisecond, Mink’s nonchalance cracks. Beneath it I see—god, I don’t even know. Worry, confusion, rage. Then his expression seals up again, like the honest emotion is a dumped corpse and his calm is the lake’s surface as it settles.

            “Why not?”            

            _Don’t fucking ask me. Don’t ask me why I didn’t let him rescue me._

            “I—.” I cough into the crook of my elbow. “I attacked a cop, remember? They’d arrest me too.”

            _Don’t fucking ask me, because I don’t know._

Mink’s specific club is just as crappy as the clubs back home—crowded, overheated, and ripe—and about three times as expensive. They have these super-annoying strobe lights that flicker wildly in unpredictable patterns. Blinking lights are a trigger for my migraines, and so is heat. Also idiots. This place is a headache factory.

            So clearly the solution is alcohol. Put off the inevitable.

            But the asshole at the bar isn’t fooled by my fake ID.

            “Fuck you, man!” I shout across the bar. “That’s 100% legit!”

            “And I am 100% done with your skinny ass.” The bartender is bald, and the lights reflect off his head like he’s signaling the mothership. He pockets my ID.

            “Hey!” I snatch at him, but Mink grabs my wrist.

            “Don’t make a scene.”

            I yank out of his grip, bones aching. “He took my fucking ID.”

            “We can get you another ID.” Mink is hardly paying attention to me, looking over the crowd, like he can see something in this mess. “One that doesn’t make you look like fourteen-year old prostitute.”

            I laugh, surprised. I didn’t know he made jokes. Although that probably wasn’t a joke. “What now?”

            Mink shrugs. “Go have fun.” Like this is a jungle-gym and I’m a five-year-old.

            Right. Fun.

            For Mink, _fun_ appears to be sitting alone on a couch on the second floor, letting an eight dollar beer get warm next to him. Sitting relaxed with his legs open and arms spread out on the back of the couch, he is sexy as hell. He’s probably not even doing it on purpose, and that annoys me enough to mumble something about needing a cigarette. Mink considers me for a few seconds, before nodding.

            Asshole. Like I need his permission.

            It’s cold as balls out tonight and I don’t actually want to smoke, so I just wander the lobby in a slow circle. At least the lights here don’t flash like a demented Christmas angel—they’re just a cool, lucent blue that make me feel like I’m in a David Lynch dream sequence.

            After a couple of minutes of pacing I shove my hands into my jacket pockets and venture further down the hall. The club is only the front half of the building; the rest is closed boutiques and a mostly-empty restaurant Down one hall is locked restroom and a fire door that’s propped open by a broken cinderblock. It reminds me of Grams, and all the times she’s shouted at me for leaving the front door open, Home-sickness rushes into me in a dark ache.

            _Stupid. I haven’t even been gone 24 hours._

            I stick my head out into the evening, hoping the fresh air will fight off the threat of a migraine and the tears that are definitely _not_ trembling at the corners of my eyes.

            New York City air? Not very fresh, it turns out.

            I’m about to pull back in and shut the door behind me, when I hear voices close by.

            “What’s the matter, baby?”

            “Leave me alone.”

            The first voice buzzes with lazy threat, but the second doesn’t sound scared. Just…calm. It’s an order, not a plea.

            “Fuck you, little bitch.”

            “Yeah, we just want to—.”

            The voices dissolve into laughter that just as quickly become shouts of surprise. And pain.

            I shove the cinderblock aside and shove open the door. It’s raining in a drizzly, slimy mist, tepid water running down the center of the alley, and I follow it past a fire escape and a line of dumpsters.

            Four men lie sprawled on the dirty sidewalk. One of them is moaning weakly, but the rest are out cold. Or dead. A dropped can of Bud Light rolls toward the gutter, still gushing beer.

            A woman in a gauzy white mini-dress and black pumps stands over them, shoulders trembling. Shit, she must be freezing. The rain has gathered her dark hair to the back of her neck in slick clumps, and the passing headlights make her whole body shine.

            “Hey, are you—.”

            The woman stumbles. I barely make it in time before her knees buckle. I catch her old-movie style. She barely weighs anything at all, like her bones are hollow.

            Her eyes flutter and her throat bobs, and oh, okay. I had seen the dress and assumed girl, but I’m not so sure anymore. Whoever they are, they are pale and dazed, and probably hallucinating, because when their eyes finally focus on me, they smile.

            “It’s you,” they say, before slipping away into unconsciousness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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